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HORROR NIGHT AT THE PLAZA

It would only take a second, thought Joanna Cutler. Throw out the trash and pop back into her 14th-floor apartment at The Plaza hotel.

But while she was in the garbage room, the door closed automatically – and then jammed.

And so began the top Manhattan real estate broker’s night of horror at The Plaza, a seven-hour ordeal in which Cutler says she:

* Bloodied her hands beating on the door and cut her fingers to shreds trying to claw her way out.

* Screamed at the top of her lungs for hours to no avail.

* Broke down and wept believing that rescue from her dank hell was hopeless and fearing that someone would rob her apartment, whose door she had left open.

“I realized I wasn’t getting out. That’s when I started crying. Weird thoughts were going through my mind . . . like if there’s a fire, I’d burn to a crisp,” Cutler told The Post.

“I kept asking: ‘Who’s going to find me? Why won’t anyone check up on me?’ I can live through anything if I know there’s an end in sight, but I was beginning to think there wasn’t.”

Cutler’s ordeal ended at 6 a.m. last Thursday when a building worker starting his shift heard her screams and pried the door open.

Her lawyer, Susan Karten, said a 4-foot by 8-foot piece of particle board laid down to protect hallway rugs had been improperly taped down, causing it to shift and jam against the door.

In a letter yesterday, Karten put the owners of The Plaza, Elad Properties, on notice that Cutler – whose clients have included Mariska Hargitay, Naomi Campbell and Jennifer Aniston – might sue, saying, “We intend to hold you responsible for all damages that flow from this incident.”

Lloyd Kaplan, an Elad spokesman said, “We sincerely regret the discomfort Ms. Cutler experienced. As soon as we were notified of the incident, we inspected all common area doors to make certain they are in proper working order.”

The top broker’s night of horror began at 11 p.m. on Feb. 20.

Wearing socks, thin lounge pants and a short-sleeved polo shirt, she planned a quick visit to the garbage room – just 10 feet from her apartment.

She left the door open – with her Fabergé egg and other valuables inside.

“I never imagined anything like this would happen to me. I just wanted to pop out a second and go back inside to bed,” she said.

When she was dumping her small bag of garbage in a can at the rear of the elevator-sized room, the door shut.

“I went to leave, but it wouldn’t open,” Cutler recalled.

“I began shoving and pushing, but it wouldn’t budge. Then I started using my feet on the door, then banged with my hands, my back and my butt.

“I kept trying to free up whatever was jamming the door with the tips of my fingers. I was trying to slip them underneath the door, but something sharp cut them,” she said.

“After an hour, I knew there was no hope so I started screaming at the top of my lungs.”

But no one was there to hear her.

Couples from San Francisco and New Zealand live on her floor, but they were out of town.

“It was freezing and I kept shivering,” she said. “The tile floor felt like ice and was too cold to sit on. I had to stand up the whole time.”

paul.tharp@nypost.com